2016 Spring Fling Summary

Spring Fling 2016 Summary

Overview: Spring Fling was held April 15, 2016 in conjunction with several Oglesby Union events, including the FSU High Flying Circus Home show, Paint-a-Pot, Painting Express, Friday Night Bites, films at the Student Life Cinema, Cosmic bowling and a concert in Club Downunder. The event was free to FSU students with a valid ID, $15 for non-FSU students, and free for children under 12. Students were able to win prizes at game booths, get free food and enjoy rides, take part in Flash Fit: Cardio Party in the Union Courtyard, represent their RSOs at RSOPalooza/KidZone, and much more!

Campus Partners and Planning Committee: This event is planned by a committee consisting of staff members from the Student Activities Center, the Art Center, Crenshaw Lanes, the Askew Student Life Center, Flying High Circus, Union Marketing, the FSU Child Care Center, Aramark, Guest Services, and Union Administration. The Special Events coordinator from the Union Productions programming board also serves on the committee. The committee is chaired by a first-year programming Graduate Assistant in Student Activities, which this year was the Graduate Assistant for Union Productions and Club Downunder.

Event List: Carnival: 7pm - Midnight, Union Green Elle King: 18 + Doors 8:30pm, show 9:30pm, Club Downunder Cosmic Bowling: 7pm - 2am, Crenshaw Lanes Friday Night Bites: 11pm - 2am, Union Foodcourt Concessions: Featuring – Diva Pops, Dog Et Al, Raley’s Confectionary, Big O Amusements (French Fries, Funnel Cakes) Paint-A-Pot: Three sessions, 7 – 8:15pm, 8:45 – 10pm, 10:30pm– 12am Painting Express: Three sessions, 7-8pm, 8:30-9:30pm, 10-11pm RSO Palooza (Kid Zone): 7 – 10pm, Union Courtyard Flash Fit: Cardio Party: 10pm, on the Union Green Flying High Circus: 8pm-Gates open at 7pm ASLC Movies: Spectre at 8pm, Alien at 12am Event Attendance: Attendance was calculated by tracking the amount of wristbands that were distributed to faculty, staff, students, and non-students (members of the community). The total amount of people that attended Spring Fling was 1,562.

Highlights:  A total of 288 surveys were started, with 269 completed, giving us a completion rate of 94% o Ethnicity Breakdown: Caucasian/ White (48%), Hispanic/Latino (21%), African American/Black (17%), Mixed (5%), Asian/Pacific Islander (8%), Other (1%) o Gender Breakdown: Male (19%), Female (80%), Other (1%) o Classification Breakdown: Freshman (43%), Sophomore (22%), Junior (15%), Senior (12%), Graduate Student (9%), Transfer (3%), Other (1%) o Most respondents resided on-campus (55%)

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Friends/ word-of-mouth (51%), Facebook (44%) and flyers/posters in residence halls (26%) ranked highest in ways students heard about Spring Fling activities (Students were allowed to choose more than on method).

Carnival rides and games (63%), concessions (84%), and food vendors (64%) were the top three Union events the survey respondents participated in (Respondents were allowed to choose more than one activity).

Carnivals/ special events (16%), paint a pot/ sidewalk chalk (11%), and movies at the SLC (33%) were the top three activities the survey respondents were most interested in.

The majority of respondents attended because they enjoyed the events (81%), were hungry and wanted free food (83%), and were interested in meeting new people and socializing and had nothing else to do (31%).

58% of survey participants were attending Spring Fling for the first time.

A majority of survey respondents (55%) stated they would definitely attend Spring Fling again.

Most respondents believed that attending Spring Fling reduced student drinking of alcoholic beverages that evening (39%).

Friday Night Bites Survey Highlights The Friday Night Bites survey was conducted on Friday, April 15, 2016 and 166 people completed the survey. A total of 470 people attended this FNB. Response rate was 35%.  The majority of Breakfast for a Buck Survey respondents were freshman (38%), female (66%), Caucasian/ White (37%), who lived on-campus (45%).  The majority of the respondents attended the event because they were either hungry and there was free food (48%)  The majority of respondents, (47%), thought the food was of average quality.  Most respondents believed that attending Friday Night Bites on campus maybe reduced student drinking of alcoholic beverages that evening (42%).

Recommendations for Next Year As we saw in 2015, it is crucial that the planning committee consider potential rain locations in advance of the event. While there was no rain on the day of the event, we did have to move rides to concrete surfaces instead of their original spots on the Green at the last minute, which made our large sitemaps show incorrect information. Next year, I recommend having multiple sitemap options or one map that has enough white space to make notes or alter the location information in the event of lastminute changes.

As always, the food was received very well by students and food numbers should be increased to ensure there is enough to provide for students throughout the night and not simply in the first few hours.

Additionally, staff should be more conscious of recording numbers for all food vendors and activities in general. This year, we overlooked a lot of that and had to calculate food numbers by estimates over time (we saw approximately 100 people per hour, etc.) and there was no universal measure across vendors, which made assessment less precise than it could be.

As attendance numbers have shown, interest in the Spring Fling event seems to be waning. We had hoped that the Elle King outdoor concert would liven up the event and attract a new crowd, but due to the last minute cancellation we were left with the smallest event in attendance and vendor numbers in recent years. Brainstorming in the early planning phase should focus on ways to innovate this next year’s event rather than falling into the age-old trap of “we’ve always done it this way.” We also combined RSO Palooza and KidZone this year, but received minimal interest or engagement from RSO’s for this event.

Conversations about the purpose of RSOPalooza and whether it should continue should take place early next year in the planning process.